WDESPN Fantasy Reaction: Trenton Richardson Traded

Fantasy: Trent Richardson http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=9691095  –via ScoreCenter (http://es.pn/lyCHK9)

WDE Rumble 13: Week 2 Awards (Sponsored by the Million Second Quiz)

When you get to week 2, that’s when the true face of the league starts to show itself. Alot of the week 1 awards were based off surprise performances – but week 2 is when things start to settle down and the true potential victors of the league start to emerge. In fact, the top award for this week goes to the team that most people believe should be the overall victor of the league this year….

[Sponsor: The Million Second Quiz – Do you have the time to take a quiz?]

Man of Steel Award / Nashville Ninjas (266.81): As the old saying goes, “Don’t call it a comeback”. A week after putting up alot of points and losing – Coach Applegate motivated his team to not only rebound but rebound with a vengeance in Week 2 by achieving the newest standard of Juggernaut – breaking 250! The 266 point onslaught was led by the 3 of the 4 players highlighted in the storylines leading up to the game. Michael Vick, the backup that no one loved in the pre-season, put on a heck of a performance in his week 2 appearance coming away with 60 points and a better performance than that good for nothing slacker known as Aaron Rodgers. But Vick couldn’t pull off this performance by himself – he needed a little bit of help and got that from his guy, DeSean Jackson who came away with an additional 39 points. It was quite the offensive performance by the Ninjas with 4 of their major players scoring over 30 points…it’s kind of amazing the Ninjas didn’t break 300 points. But one has to wonder which team is the real Nashville Ninjas – the one that meekly lost last week or the one that easily demolished this week. I know I can’t wait to see what happens in week 3!

The Lone Ranger Award / Texasseans: You know it’s awesome when your entire team is firing on all cylinders and you scored over 200 points. You would think that would be an amazing accomplishment, right? A walk in the park to victory lane. Under normal circumstances it would be – if you also weren’t playing the number one scoring team that week. That’s exactly the buzzsaw that the Texasseans ran into this week. Scoring 30 more points than he did last week, with Aaron Rodgers (56) and the New England defense (51) leading the way, Phil had to be feeling good about his chances on Thursday night and was sick to his stomach by Sunday night. This quite possibly could go down as his best game of the season…and it resulted in a loss. What more can Phil do? I would say score 30 points higher next week but then that team might be the one that scores over 300 points in a week.

Joe Flacco Award / The Outlaws: A week after being the king of the mountain, the Outlaws are now barely climbing that same mountain. It wasn’t exactly a banner day for the commish as his shiny new toy of Eddie Lacy scored only .67 due to an illegal hit by Brandon Merriweather. Then he had to watch as James Stark stole the the amazing match up against the Washington Redskins. Then to add insult to injury, instead of playing the Dolphins against the Falcons – the commish went with the Eagles thinking that the defense would be able to benefit from the high pace of the offense. Not quite as the Eagles had 3 points of of a projected 29.87. But the main reason that the Outlaws are getting this award is because of the hard work by Macheteros. They picked up Julian Edelman and didn’t play him on Thursday night in the WR spot. If he had played  Edelman instead of Andre Roberts, Macheteros would have won this game by 1 point. Instead, they are now looking at a 0-2 start and the Outlaws are looking vulnerable after looking so awesome in week 1…just like Joe Flacco after the Super Bowl.

The Blackhawk Awards / Bring It!: One week after barely beating ATLiens. Bring It! unleashes their namesake on the poor Spartans team. You know, the team that the Outlaws said looked like the team to beat in the league this season. Well that statement isn’t looking so hot at the moment. Once again, Matty Ice came through for Coach Rowan giving him a clear advantage over that pretty boy known as Tom Brady and his uncatchable receiving corps. So for 2 weeks in a row, PRR has clearly had the better QB and that has clearly led to a better record than both of his opponents. The other differentiating factor for this week was also the play from their WR1 spot. Both Dez Bryant and AJ Green were selected in the second round but for this week – at least – only one truly lived up to that pedigree with Bryant gettin 30 points while AJ only got 8.73. So basically, the moral of the story is that the Spartan players should only play on Sunday afternoon…because the whole Thursday/Monday night thing isn’t working out so well. There were also two other punches to the guton the Spartans side that led to this demolition. The first was the non-contact injury to Ray Rice and since Bill doesn’t have Bernard Pierce on his team as of this moment, this could be a multi-week issue for the Spartans.The second punch came from the Seattle defense that just totally shutdown Anquan Boldin and the San Francisco defense. Richard Sherman brought a big stick and just beat down the 49ers and the Spartans with it this week. The more interesting question for teams facing the Spartans over the next few weeks: Who will they be facing? This is the list of injured and non-factor players on the Spartans squad right now: Ray Rice, Danny Amendola, Rob Gronkowski, Jonathan Franklin and they have an empty bench spot. It might be that teams that are facing the Spartans over the next few weeks will be highlighted here.

WDE Rumble 12 Week 3 Awards (Sponsored by The Proof Of Your Love music video by for KING & COUNTRY)

WDE Rumble 12 Week 3 Awards (Sponsored by The Proof Of Your Love music video by for KING & COUNTRY)

After 3 weeks, not a whole lot has been decided in this league.  Much like the NFL, our league has a lot of parity.  There’s only 1 team at 3-0 and 7 teams at 2-1.  Oh yeah, there’s also 3 teams at 0-3 and their coaches are starting to feel the pressure to not fall too far behind.  Week 3 of the 2012 Weekly Awards:

 

The Gold Standard Award (Highest scoring team of the week) = ATLiens Rises – After a 1 week absence for Coach Owen to lay a beating to Coach Stewart, the ATLiens jump back up to the top spot.  Lead by the amazing performance by Torrey Smith, Coach Jupin’s team finally gave Maddog the loss that we all expected would happen every week.  Coach Jupin took the week off from praising the Georgia boys, Ryan and Green, and took the opportunity to give a meaningful and powerful post game press conference speech.  I, for one, am glad he had the chance to share.  Now, let’s not give him too many of those chances!

 

Mikela Maroney is not impressed Award (Highest scoring team that lost) = Bring It! – This week is a prime example of why head-to-head scoring is so crazy.  Coach Rowan would have only lost to two teams in the league this week, but he just happened to be playing one of them.  Just like the award’s namesake, PRR is putting up huge numbers constantly, but he slipped up just enough this week to get beaten.  Coach, Mikela is not impressed.

 

Gabby Douglas Award (Lowest scoring team that won) = The Footballas – This is the other example of head-to-head scoring being crazy.  The Footballas would have only Beaten 2 teams in this league putting up only 123 points.  Good thing for him, The Outlaws have given up and decided to go partying with the real refs for a while.  Only one of Coach Stepp’s players got more points than his KICKER, but he somehow found a way to win.  That’s two weeks in a row that he’s gotten this award.  Let’s see if he can keep the magic going in honor of his beloved Cards did in their improbable World Series run last season.

 

The Avengers Award (Largest margin of victory) = ATLiens Rises – Coach Jupin won by almost as many points as The Outlaws scored.  That’s funny.  I know he wasn’t playing The Outlaws, but that’s still funny. The way The Footballas have been winning lately, ATLiens may have a chance to be right back here again next week.  Either that or Coach Stepp is sending his thugs down to the GA Dome to rough up Matty Ice so he can steal another one.

WDE Rumble 12 Week 1 Awards (Sponsored by Away From The World by Dave Matthews Band)

WDE Rumble 12 Week 1 Awards (Sponsored by Away From The World by Dave Matthews Band)

 

Week 1: Done.  Some of us are very happy about that fact, while others are frantically looking for trade partners and searching the waiver wire for potential season-saviors.  Week 1 saw some crazy high scoring with 2 teams already going juggernaut (do we need to redefine the term?!?!) and one other team very very close.  One rivalry game provided two of the awards this week, so we start there for Week 1 of the 2012 Weekly Awards:

 

The Gold Standard Award (Highest scoring team of the week) = ATLiens Rises – Coach Jupin was quick to call this a statement win and I have to believe him.  The Falcon fan was doing the Dirty Bird all weekend as he cheered on the Vols to victory and then watched Matt Ryan put up the most points of any player while leading his team to a huge win over the Commish.

Mikela Maroney is not impressed Award (Highest scoring team that lost) = The Outlaws – Coach Stewart took this loss exceptionally hard and took to bed-rest for Monday evening not even being able to watch his claim that AJ Green would be shut down on MNF.  The Outlaws would have only lost to 2 other teams this week, but that’s no consolation when you’re 0-1.

 

Gabby Douglas Award (Lowest scoring team that won) = MADDOG – What is happening?  MADDOG, the team that wasn’t supposed to win a game this whole season, starts out 1-0. Demaryius Thomas is seeing The Peyton Effect and looks to be this year’s Marvin Harrison/Reggie Wayne/Pierre Garcon who Peyton chooses to turn into a star.  Thomas more than doubled his projected points and lead his team to a victory making for a very very bad weekend for Coach Stepp.  Coach Stepp, are you even still with your team or have you abandoned them to run off to your tropical paradise while this media firestorm blows over?

 

The Avengers Award (Largest margin of victory) = Macheteros™ – Yes, Coach Scott, “SMOKED” is the correct term.  The Macheteros™ decided to turn on the heat and blow this one open early.  This matchup wasn’t close the whole time and the Spartans RBs decided they didn’t even want to bother and left early.  That’s a coaching issue that I’m sure Coach Scott is trying to fix.  Let’s see if the Brees/Jones tandem can keep The Macheteros™ rolling all season.

 

WDE Rumble 11 Awards / Week 4 (Sponsored by Apple)

If there’s one thing that we’ve come to expect from the Rumble is that not everything is at it seems. One week, you’re on top of the world looking undefeated and the next you’re crawling your way out of one of the most humble losses of your season. Week 4 was the start of the divisional games and some teams showed up, while others proved that they are just the stepping stones for this season. Let’s take a look back and see who stepped up (or got knocked down) for an award.

[Sponsor: In memory of Steve Jobs / 1955 – 2011. A league that thinks differently mourns the loss of a man who coined the term]

Dallas Maverick Award: Orange Nation / Well will wonders never cease. We’ve actually got an Owen brother winning an award. And not for coming up short, but for actually coming through and winning a game. The times theyh are a’changing. This was very much a win for Orange Nation and not just incompetence by Macheteros. Orange Nation threw everything he had at Macheteros (except for the Cadillac – which didn’t show up) and came away with the win. The biggest surprise has to be the production that Joel is able to get out of his WR position. With a wing in a prayer, he’s gotten great production out of bothe Eric Decker and Steve Smith for multiple weeks. The RBs – not so much – but could Orange Nation actually be a contender? In the tough RAW division, it might be a bit tough – but this is feeling like the year that anything is possible. Orange Nation will definitely be a team to watch if only to see if this team falls into the trap of win 1, lose 1. Which probably won’t be enough to get them into the playoffs….but we shall see.

Miami Heat Award: Texasseans / WHAT? Both of the Owen brothers are represented in this weeks awards? Wonders – could you please cease!? Anyway, this is the more appropriate award for an Owen brother – especially Phil – to win. It’s very appropriate that this past weekend, Phil enjoyed a nice game of NCAA 12 on his shiny new PS3 because he went up against the video game version of Aaron Rodgers. The real Aaron Rodgers decided to take the night off and just control his avatar remotely and led him to a 72 point game. How bad was this beat down? If you combined the scores of Eli Manning, Vincent Jackson, Chris Johnson, Hines Ward and MJD – you would still be 2 point shy of what Aaron Rodgers did by himself. The only good thing about this match up was that the beatdown was so severe that Phil didn’t have to hold out hope on Monday night. That’s about the only positive that comes from getting completely dominated by a juggernaut. At least Phil can now say he’s a Rumble Award winner in the 2011 season.

Seal Team Six Award: Bring It! / Two Words: Aaron Rodgers. This was a complete and utter a$$ whipping on the back of one Mr. Rodgers. I’m pretty sure everyone is afraid to go into his neighborhood now because he’ll just score on you (be careful not to bring your wife or girlfriend). While Jimmy Graham and the Washington defense both had nice games, this was all over once Aaron Rodgers threw his 3rd TD and decided….I want more. Will Aaron rise to the occasion once again or will he return to his mortal ways this week?

The Avengers Award: Clark Kent / Somehow it just doesn’t feel right that a team named Clark Kent is getting a Marvel award, but such is life. This award is more about Coach Stewart’s players not showing up, rather than Clark Kent putting on a dominant performance. It all started with Frank Gore being demoted from the starter position and then going on to dominate all the carries and have a good fantasy day. Then Ryan Fitzpatrick had flashbacks of his not so glory days and decided it wasn’t worth the effort to try and break at least 10 points this weekend. Then Rob Gronkowski thought fantasy points were accrued by blocking not scoring points, so he did that instead (while of course Tom Brady decided to throw to everyone else on the Patriots offense this week). Heck, even the Tampa Bay defense which was suppose to embarass Painter on Monday night failed to impress. It was an overall lackluster effort on the part of the Outlaws and they allowed Clark Kent to survive another week as the lone undefeated team. Who will step up and slay the giant? And can Mike handle the pressure of being the man so early in the season?

WDE Rumble 11 – Week 1 Storylines (Sponsored by X-Men: First Class)

Well here we are again for yet another awesome season of fantasy football. It has been a crazy off-season with the lockout and then the shortened off-season. One thing that will definitely be proven this year is whether or not it takes skill or luck to win a fantasy championship – while there were a few sleepers this preseason, with the lockout happening there might be more diamonds in the rough that are yet to be revealed or won’t show themselves at all this season. For the first time in forever, we have all 12 coaches back from the previous year and as is our tradition, the week 1 story lines will feature every match up from this week. So without further adieu, let’s kick the 2011 season off with a rematch of the 2010 finale…

[Sponsor: X-Men: First Class – Available on DVD/Blu-Ray this Friday]

The Outlaws vs. Spartans (Rumble Championship Rematch): Just like the NFL starts the season off with a rematch of a conference championship game from the previous season, the Rumble gets the season off right with a match that could set the course for the rest of the season. On one side, you have the hall of fame Rumble coach and commissioner who is coming off the first ever back to back championship history. It would seem, though, that fate is trying to derail his season already. Before the first game was even played, the star player on the Outlaws has a pulled hamstring and they’ve lost their backup tight end for the season. What started off as almost a sure fire win in week 1, has turned into a predicted 20 point loss by Yahoo. But if there’s one thing that Outlaws are good at is beating the odds.  It will be interesting to see how this team battles adversity from the beginning of the football season. On the other hand, you have the high flying and overachieving Spartans. Led by second year superstar coach, Bill Scott, the Spartans are a team that look quite dangerous on paper but there are a few red flags. The most glaring of which is the dog lover, Michael Vick. Now I know what you’re saying to yourself “But Michael Vick can single handily win you a football game” to which I say A) stop talking to yourself and B) he can also single handily loss you a football game as well. If you saw a few of the preseason games that he was in – all was not right with the Philly offense. Now it could have just been pre-season kinks that need to be worked out. But just like dogs need to fear Vick, Vick needs to fear his offensive line because it could get him killed if he’s not careful. So in the end it comes down to one thing on both sides of the field. On the Outlaws side, can they stay healthy enough to get past the first week with a win. On the Spartans side, can Vick not get killed in his first real game as his offensive line gels together because of the lack of a preseason. For my money, I think this match up will end the same way it did last year in the championship game. The Outlaws win this one, if only by just a little bit.

[WDESPN Prediction: The Outlaws]

Macheteros vs. Epic ATLiens Time: This is the battle of which team can have the most homer picks on their squad. While everyone knew that Reid was going to assemble a collection of Atlanta Falcon players on his squad, no one really expected Chris to do the same thing. On Reid’s side of the ball, he’s got his boy Matty Ice and Curtis Lofton holding down the fort, while he rosters his lottery pick of Jacquizz Rodgers. On Chris’s side of the ball, he’s got his boy Mario Manningham, Brandon Jacobs and Jason Pierre-Paul. Little did we know when this match up was made that these two teams would have so much in common to start the season – the question is which homer picks will actually come through. Yahoo is predicting a 9 point victory for ATLiens, and we’re going to have to agree with that sentiment – there’s just something about Chris’ team that doesn’t scream week 1 win. Not only is he betting a bit on the Giants offense which has struggled in the off-season, he’s also betting on a rookie WR in Julio Jones who has not had an entire off-season to get ready for the NFL season. The most interesting match up in this battle will be at the tight end position – both Antonio Gates and Jermichael Finley are coming off injuries, so it will be great to see which of the 2 brings it the first week of the season. But for our money, give us the Epic ATLiens Time team in a rout.

[WDESPN Prediction: Epic ATLiens Time]

The Footballas vs. Orange Nation: This should be an interesting match up simply because both of these coaches have players that have a ton of question marks around them. For the Footballas, the main question is can Brandon Lloyd do it again? Can he live up to the hype created by how he played during the first half of last season. Now that teams know about him AND Josh McDaniel’s is no longer the coach there, things might be a little rookie for Mr. Lloyd this season. Another question for Todd’s team – how will Ray Rice hold up against being the goal line back? Since Todd did the uncharacteristic thing and made Rice the number 1 overall pick – there will be a ton of attention paid to whether or not he can live up to that value. On the flip side, you have Joel’s team that has alot of questions surrounding Jeremy Maclin and Steve Smith of Carolina. One is questionable because of health and the other is questionable because of who is throwing him the ball (and despite what Todd might think, Carolina does have a quarterback. He’s black so Todd may need secondary confirmation that he actually counts as a player). This match up just has the feeling of being a very low scoring match up with the winner being the person that can just stick it out the longest and for us that team will be Orange Nation. Even though Yahoo is giving The Footballas an 8 point victory over Orange Nation, we just don’t see it – there’s just no way that the Footballas is going to be able to get a victory in this situation. Todd, we hope your prospects as a father are better than your prospects as a fantasy football coach this season.

[WDESPN Prediction: Orange Nation]

Nashville Ninjas vs. Clark Kent [Rivalry]: The Eric Berry lovers unite! For the first time in the history of the Rumble, a defensive player was selected as a keeper. That IDP was Eric Berry and this matchup features the two coaches who were literally fighting over him – as anyone can attest from the multiple times they will show you the Eric Berry for Heisman video. Now that the dust has settled and the Eric Berry controversy has been put to rest at least for now, it’s time for the actual games to be played and see where things land. For the Ninjas, you know times are desperate when you’re starting Mark Sanchez in the first game of the year (his main QB, Joe Flacco, is facing off against the Steelers defense) so we’ll see how that works for him. Other than Sanchez starting, things don’t look to bad for the Ninjas except for the fact that they are facing a team that looks so much better than them. MIke is rolling into the first week with pretty boy Tom Brady, Megatron (and he will finish the touchdown process in week 1 this season), and if he’s healthy – Marques Colston. On paper, Mike’s team just looks like a better team BUT Yahoo is not showing him any love, predicting a 11 point beat down from the Ninjas. But we’re not a computer and we just don’t have the faith in Jonas’ players like Yahoo does. The only thing we can’t account for is ‘The Applegate Factor’. If this were any other matchup, it would be pretty easy to predict Clark Kent as the winner – but he’s going up against Jonas on Monday night. Never a good combination. So despite our better judgment, we’re going to pick the Nashville Ninjas to come away with the victory on this one. The Ninjas just don’t lose opening weekend games when they have folks playing on Monday Night – just doesn’t happen.

[WDESPN Prediction: Nashville Ninjas]

Maddog vs. Texasseans: Well this was suppose to be Manning vs. Manning to start the season off, but Peyton decided he needed more time to rehab from all the commercials he did during the off-season. Things are not looking good for him to start in week 1 of the season (or heck, the first couple of weeks of the season) so Maddog is going to have depend on the fragile Matthew Stafford to get him through these hard times. But the Peyton affect goes so much deeper than that for Maddog – you see, he also has Reggie Wayne AND Dallas Clark on his team. Even when Peyton is playing that’s not a good idea but it’s even worse when Kerry Collins is playing and is nowhere near as good as Peyton. The great hope for Maddog is that Adrian Peterson just goes off against the San Diego defense and counterbalances the lack of points that Clark and Wayne will have. So while Maddog is suffering from the lack of a quality QB, the Texasseans are suffering from a lack of IDPs. Using the highly unorthodox method of drafting 4QBs and no IDPs, Phil is going to try a different method to get to the fantasy championship. While we are pretty sure it won’t work, hey this league is all about trying new and different things. There’s alot of hope on the Texasseans squad though (Hope that Vincent Jackson can live up to the hype, hope that Ochocinco can get enough balls thrown his way to matter, hope that Chris Johnson isn’t slowed by not attending training camp, hope that MJD isn’t slowed by his surgery and hope that Hines Ward can still dance with the defense like he dances with the stars). As you can see, there’s a lot of uncertainty on both sides of the field. It’s just a matter of which team has enough to get over the hump and make a game of this. Yahoo is giving Maddog an 18 point victory over the Texasseans, and I don’t see how the Texasseans can actually overcome that type of deficit. I think this one is going to be semi-close but in the end Maddog will come away with the victory.

[WDESPN Prediction: Maddog]

Pain and Suffering vs. Brings It! [Rivalry]: Now this is actually one of the better matchups of the week because it features two proven Rumble coaches and both have semi-solid teams around them. While Matt’s team looks solid from top to bottom he has one little problem that has sunk previous fantasy teams – the Madden Curse. His keeper was Peyton Hillis, who somehow beat out Michael Vick for the cover of Madden 12. While it means great publicity for the Browns and for Peyton, it could spell the beginning of the end for Matt’s fantasy season. In the history of the Rumble, no one who has a player on the cover of Madden on their team makes the playoffs. Should be interesting to see if Matt can overcome that history or will his team be sunk before they even have a chance to get out the gate. On the other side of the ball is PRR and semi-solid team of merry men. The main question surrounding this squad is can Ryan Grant hold onto the starting job and can Felix Jones take the starting job by the horns and run well with it? The sleeper on this team if Jimmy Graham, who has been a rising TE1 candidate amongst the fantasy circuit – this will be our first chance to see if he can live up to the hype as well in a real game. Yahoo is spotting Phillip’s team 11 points and I’m going to agree that Bring It! will win this one quite easily. The Madden curse will sink even the best team – and Pain and Suffering is it’s toughest test yet. If somehow Matt can overcome the curse and make it to the fantasy playoffs, he will have proven to be the best of us all. But he won’t – so no need to get that plaque ready for him.

[WDESPN Prediction: Bring It!]

2011 WDE Rumble Draft Selection Show

Ladies and Gents (OK, just gents since we ran off all the ladies from this league), the 2011 WDE Rumble Draft Selection Show is now here!  Click the link below to see where you’re drafted and, more importantly, who you’re beating up in this year’s  2011 WDE Rumble Draft Selection Show!